Johannesburg - South Africa's mines recorded 32 deaths in the first half of 2021 compared with 24 during the same period in 2020, the mines ministry said on Thursday, continuing a spike in deaths which began last year in some of the world's deepest mines
Seoul - Currency exchange rates and commodity prices appear to be wildly fluctuating in North Korea as a resumption in major trade with China hasn't materialised, increasing the hardship for residents facing food shortages
Abidjan - Above-average rains last week in Ivory Coast's central cocoa-growing regions will help the development of the last stage of the mid-crop while more downpours were needed in other regions, farmers said on Monday
Amman - The "year of wheat" campaign pushed by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in jeopardy after low rainfall risked leaving an import gap of at least 1.5 million tonnes, according to preliminary estimates by officials and experts. The agricultural blow and lack of funds to finance the imports will add to pressure on a Syrian economy already reeling from 10 years of conflict and buckling under the pressure of U.S. sanctions
Lima - Peru's presidential front-runner is taking aim at copper mining firms' coveted tax stability agreements that freeze tariffs, and the plan could have an outsized impact on Chinese miners in the world's No. 2 producer of the red metal. Socialist candidate Pedro Castillo, the narrow favorite to win Sunday's run-off vote, has proposed new royalties on mineral sales and has floated a plan to renegotiate long-standing tax deals struck under previous governments
London - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) has started construction at a site in Arizona where it plans to spend $12 billion to build a computer chip factory, its chief executive said on Tuesday. Speaking at the company's annual technology presentation to clients and investors, held online for the second straight year because of the pandemic, CEO C.C. Wei said the planned factory remains on track to start volume production of chips
Melbourne - The Aboriginal group whose sacred rock shelters Rio Tinto destroyed in Western Australia last year for an iron ore mine said it was committed to improving its relationship with the miner to ensure such desecration never happens again
Melbourne - The world's top three iron ore miners on Thursday launched a competition to crowdsource efficient ways to deliver power to battery-electric haulage truck fleets as they strive to cut greenhouse gas emissions
London - The cost of EU emissions allowances has doubled over the last two years, which is likely to renew debate over the relative merits of market-based and tax-based approaches to pricing carbon dioxide emissions
Lima - Peruvian presidential election front-runner, socialist Pedro Castillo, said on Saturday he would, if elected, review contracts with foreign miners in the copper-rich country and seal a deal for Russia's Sputnik V vaccine. Castillo leads in the polls ahead of a run-off vote on June 6 against right-wing opponent Keiko Fujimori
Melbourne - Coal deliveries to Australia's Port of Newcastle, the world's biggest coal export port, have been halted because flooding in the Hunter Valley region has shut rail lines, with heavy rains also slowing ship movements at the port. Heavy rains along Australia's east coast over several days have caused the worst flooding in half a century
Khartoum - The World Food Programme will procure 200,000 tonnes of wheat for Sudan in 2021, in the second year of a programme that allows the country to help prevent shortages while preserving precious foreign currency reserves, a WFP official told Reuters. The system agreed with the WFP last year allows Sudan to reimburse the organization for the wheat in local currency, and aims to help reduce the impact of frequent shortages of wheat
Harare - China's Tsingshan Holding Group is set to start developing an iron ore mine and a carbon steel plant in Zimbabwe from May, the African country's information minister said late on Tuesday, three years after the firm first announced the investment deal
Kuala Lumpur - Top Glove said an independent consultant has found there is "no longer" any indication of systemic forced labour at the world's largest medical glove maker after it took steps to address U.S. allegations of such practices. The firm announced the findings on Tuesday as it posted a fourth consecutive quarter of record profit
Lima - The death toll in Peru continued to mount on Friday as a relentless second wave of the coronavirus left many hospitals short of oxygen for critical patients even as daily infections continued to climb. In Lima, long lines snake down city blocks as friends and relatives seek to snatch up the last remaining bottled oxygen available in the capital
Cape Town - For South African winemaker Vergenoegd Löw, the pandemic could have been a disaster but a bitter trade war between China and Australia has thrown the 325-year-old estate a lifeline. Bottles of its reds, whites and roses piled up when South Africa banned alcohol sales under a strict lockdown and visitors who once flocked to the vineyard near Cape Town to sip wine and snap photos of its famed Indian Runner ducks vanished
Singapore - A prominent Singapore businessman has said he will exit his investment in a tobacco firm linked to the Myanmar military, after the army deposed the country's democratically elected government in a coup last week
Kundli - Thousands of farmers across India blocked roads on Saturday with makeshift tents, tractors, trucks and boulders to pressure the government to roll back agricultural reforms that have triggered months-long protests. While the initial protests were started by rice and wheat growers from northern India who camped out on the outskirts of New Delhi, demonstrations have spread across the country
Kuala Lumpur - Indonesia's ambitious biodiesel programme will increase the risks of deforestation as more tropical forest could be cleared to grow palm oil, environmentalists have warned, urging policymakers to implement a long-term ban on new plantations. Indonesia - which is home to the world's third-largest tropical forests but is also its biggest producer of palm oil - has steadily increased the portion in its biodiesel mandate derived from palm oil
Moscow - Russia, one of the world's largest wheat exporters, plans to impose a higher export tax on wheat from March 1, its economy minister said on Friday, in another push to curb a rise in domestic food prices triggered by the COVID-19 crisis. Wheat prices in Chicago and Paris jumped after the proposal, which the Russian government has yet to sign
Abidjan - U.S. chocolate maker Hershey's move to buy cheap beans from the New York futures exchange is an attempt to derail plans by Ivory Coast and Ghana to increase farmers' income, the Ivorian cocoa regulator alleged in a letter seen by Reuters on Wednesday. Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world's top producers, are expected to sell their first full cocoa crop this season under a new scheme that includes a price premium of $400 per tonne
Abidjan - Cocoa arrivals at ports in Ivory Coast tumbled this week due to a violent political standoff following a disputed presidential election in the world's top growing nation. The delivery of cocoa beans to Abidjan and San Pedro ports between Monday and Wednesday were estimated 29,000 tonnes
Vares - In a remote mountain town with a history of mining that dates from Roman times, hopes are high that British mineral company Adriatic Metals will bring jobs and spur some of the economic revival Bosnia craves. Foreign direct investment in the country had already fallen as bureaucracy deterred investors. In the first half of this year, it was down nearly 50% compared with a year ago as the pandemic paralysed economic activity
Jakarta - Indonesian Sofa Arbiyanto had a manufacturing job in South Korea two years ago when he learned about the high price of vanilla on the global market, and decided to try his luck at growing it. Now he has 2,000 vanilla vines on a 1,200-sq-metre (0.3-acre) farm in Blora, Central Java, started after he did some internet research and joined online groups of vanilla farmers
Beijing - A city in China's eastern Anhui province found the novel coronavirus on the packaging of shrimps from Ecuador, state media reported on Wednesday, in the latest instance of the virus being detected on imported products
London - Chocolate fans will not necessarily benefit from predictions of a fall in cocoa prices this year. A Reuters poll of London cocoa futures published on Monday forecast cocoa would cost 10% less at the end of the year
Rio Tinto on Friday reported a 1.5% rise in iron ore shipments for the second quarter and said demand for the steelmaking ingredient was improving in China as its economy recovers from the coronavirus outbreak
The slump in China’s exports likely eased in June as some countries reopened their economies, while imports contracted less sharply on higher crude oil and commodities purchases, a Reuters poll shows
More than 70 ships are lined up at Brazil’s port of Santos to load sugar for export in a queue that may take a month to clear after buyers worldwide scrambled to get ahead of possible disruption caused by the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic
China’s eastern province of Zhejiang, the second worst-hit by the coronavirus epidemic, will push major exporters to be the first to return to work after the extended Lunar New Year holiday
Botta: "At Fruit Logistica in Berlin, Liguria will speak with one voice"
Strikes over pension reform in France could slow grain exports from this month by preventing enough supplies from reaching ports and by making the French crop too expensive to compete overseas
Coldiretti reports. The benefit from the situation is for the lobby linked to the US dairy industry (CCFN) which has explicitly asked with a letter to impose taxes on imports of European cheeses to favor the fake Made in Italy industry and force the Union European to open the borders to the fake Italian food made in US
Genoa - From wholesale food market to a centre for advanced logistics services: 10 years after its move from the city centre to the area of Bolzaneto, the fruit and vegetable market of Genoa, managed by SGM (Società Gestione Mercato), opens its doors to the public. The opening will be on Saturday, 14 September Genoa
Bristol - Foreign governments subject to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs have targeted American distilleries and their bourbon and rye whiskeys for retaliation.
Berlin - Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies have called for Germany to phase out coal by 2030 but the government has insisted on keeping its 2038 target, in the latest sign of strain within her coalition.
Washington - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a challenge to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported steel brought by an industry group that argued that a key part of the law under which he imposed the duties violates the U.S. Constitution.
Washington - A cousin of cannabis plants that produce marijuana, hemp is used in products ranging from food to building materials and cannabidiol, or CBD oil, which is being touted as a treatment for everything from sleeplessness to acne to heart disease.
Beijing - China’s May coal imports rose 8.6% from the month before to 27.47 million tonnes, customs data showed on Monday, the highest level since January as power utilities boosted purchases ahead of summer.
Port Klang - Malaysia will send back some 3,300 tons of non-recyclable plastic waste to countries such as the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia in a move to avoid becoming a dumping ground for rich nations, Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said Tuesday
Washington - The U.S. Commerce Department told Reuters Monday it has submitted the results of a national security investigation into uranium imports to the White House.
Washington - The United States is working on a plan to lift tariffs from Mexican and Canadian steel and aluminum but preserve the gains that domestic producers have received from the duties so far.
Genoa - In the first 11 months of 2018, in China total coal and lignite imports increased a strong 8.9 percent to 270.5 mln tonnes. Of this, imports of steam coal and lignite increased by 13.5 percent year-on-year to 209.4 mln tonnes.
Berlin - From Genoa to Trieste, the main ports are equipped to easily handle traffic.
Berlin - German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said ending the use of coal as an energy source would send a positive signal internationally and need not drive the country’s energy prices higher.
Winnipeg - The delays caused some containers to miss their vessels, triggering contract breach penalties, Northey said.
Kiev - The imposition of martial law is not affecting Ukrainian grain shipments from ports on the Azov Sea so far and if necessary they can be diverted to the Black Sea, Ukraine’s acting agriculture minister says. More broadly, the prospects for grain exports from the Azov Sea are unclear at this point
Geneva - The U.S. assessment of India’s market price support (MPS) for cotton said New Delhi was allowed to pay out up to 10 percent of the value of production, but the actual figure had ranged from 53 percent to 81 percent since 2010.
Beijing - According to the company website, the “Mining and Smelting Combine Bor” includes Bor Copper Mines that employ 2,239 people as well as Bor Copper Smelter Refinery and the Majdanpek Copper Mine.
Sarajevo - Bosnia’s regional police on Friday detained the general manager of the Balkans’ leading metallurgical coke producer Global Ispat Koksna Industrija Lukavac (GIKIL) which was ordered to halt operations the previous day accused of environmental negligence.
Hong Kong - Larry Sloven arrived in southern China three decades ago, just as the region was taking off as the low-cost manufacturing centre of the world.
Ein Bokek - The Dead Sea is shrinking at the rate of about a meter a year, leaving behind deserted beaches and sinkholes in a slow-motion environmental disaster. The main culprit is the drying up of the Jordan river, its main tributary, as communities upstream draw on it for farming and drinking
Doha - Qatar’s Hassad Food has announced its plan to invest 500 million U.S. dollarsin the agricultural and food sector in Sudan over the next three years. The announcement came after Hassad, the wholly owned subsidiary of Qatar Investment Authority, signed a mutual agreement with a Sudanese company
Rome - Meetings continue to be positive, the minister is listening to everyone, but there is still no solution for the future of ILVA and one will not come soon. The Deputy Prime Minister himself, Luigi Di Maio, made this clear when he announced further work is needed
Paris - French farmers will start a blockade of oil refineries and fuel depots on Sunday evening in protest at plans by Total to use imported palm oil at a biofuel facility, a move that has fanned farmer discontent over unfair competition
Chicago - Global grain marketers have seized upon trade tensions between the United States and several of its top export markets, including China, to turn around struggling trading units following one of the toughest years ever for the industry.
Paris - Dry bulk freight rates for the smaller sizes of ship are likely to rise significantly over the next three years as demand is expected to outstrip supply, a shipping analyst said Thursday. New orders for Handysize, Handymax and Supramax vessels were at extremely low levels
London - Gold and oil will extend their gains on Monday, albeit modestly, when the markets open for the first time since Western powers launched a missile attack on Syria but equities and bonds are unlikely to suffer big losses unless the West strikes again or Russia retaliates
Beijing - Chinese exports of steel products may continue to fall this year due to strong domestic demand and reductions in capacity due to environmental commitments, the chairman of state-owned mill Fujian Sangang Group said.
Genova - Italmatch Chemicals(€400 million in revenue and six production plants in Europe) acquired the Jiayou Chemical Company, which is active in the production and sale of phosphonate additives, from the Ecolab Group, a world leader in technologies and services for water, hygiene and energy
Savona - The Board of Directors of the Orsero Group has conducted a reviewof its consolidated financial data at 31 December 2017, with the aim of presenting a financial picture following the acquisition of all the remaining subscribed capital from firms Hermanos Fernández López, Fruttital Firenze and Galandi
Piombino - Jindal drags its feet, and the sale of Algerian owned Inferpi steel, based in Piombino, remains on hold. Following the announcement of what seemed like a done deal for the sale of the steel mill on part of Algeria-based Cevital to India’s Jindal
Washington - Coal producers filed two recent lawsuits against governments in Washington state and California challenging local decisions to block port projects on environmental grounds.
Genoa - ILVA’s Genoa workers have been recognised by the company’s Programme Agreement, in which one of the binding points is a guarantee of upholding employment levels in exchange for the concession of 1.2 million sqm of land to ILVA’s holding company.
London - In March 2017, India’s beleaguered steel industry achieved what had been unthinkable even a few months ago. The country’s iron and steel exports during the month were more than double their imports.
London - Glencore has increased production of the metals used to make electric car batteries faster than its major mining rivals, according to an industry-wide analysis that shows the scale of a strategy that has big prospective risks and rewards
Genoa - The Genoese contingent of FIOM has decided to break ranks from the union position of abiding by the agreement signed in 2005, and has occupied the Cornigliano facility in Genoa.
Predosa - Production will not stop on 30 November. That date has been put back to 15 December; however, a buyer has yet to be found. The fate of the 42 workers at 3M, formerly Grafoplast in Predosa, the leading company in the production of electric wire markers, is still hanging by a thread
Genova - The business plan will be unveiled -and discussed - next Thursday, but AM Investco Italy’s (Arcelor Mittal and Marcegaglia’s) plan to set up a research centre in Taranto is well known. Even to the unions. So the Genoese secretaries of UILM and FIM CISL are now asking for the centre to be built in Genoa
Genova - The ship’s course, as recorded in the logbook aboard the container vessel seized by Italy’s Finance Police in the port of Gioia Tauro, was pretty accurate. From Calabria, in a matter of a few hours, the ship carrying the Tramadol cargo, known also as “the fighter drug”, would have sailed straight to Genoa
Genoa - Tense times for ‘Made in Italy’ steel. There is no shortage of complications from Taranto to Piombino.
Genova - The dispute over Ilva has been burning hotter since the controlled bankruptcyat the Italian steel group which was once owned by the Riva family. Nowadays the facility belongs to the chain Am InvestCo, controlled by the Franco-Indian ArcelorMittal Group
Genova - As negotiations on the layoffs announced by Am Investco in connection with the acquisition of Ilva S.p.A. are likely to start on October 9, tensions are rising at the union. Fiom Cgil union expressed its concern for “the picture that emerged at a Paris meeting of the Governing Board of the Industries
Alba - New York will soon get another jewel of Italian excellence.In September Ferrero plans to bring its open innovation science division to Cornell University’s Roosevelt Island campus, nestled in the East River, between Manhattan and Queens
Washington - “We need to ensure that the huge trade deficits do not continue and we have balance and reciprocity. This should be periodically reviewed,” Lighthizer said in opening remarks at NAFTA negotiations in Washington.
London - Trump official says “232” probe still in final review.
Rome - When you speak with those who carry out the food inspections,the answer is always the same: if the product is Italian you can be sure. Of course, there is always an exception, one finds producers who do things that are wrong, but it is precisely that, an exception to the rule
Bologna - The omelettes were made in the Netherlands and Belgium. But the contaminated dishes may have ended up on tables in 15 countries, including Italy. The danger goes by a name that is difficult to pronounce: it is called “Fluocyanobenpyrazole”, and it is the most important ingredient in a deadly insecticide
Bogota - One person was rescued after the blast. The cause of the explosion is not yet clear and two bodies are still in the mine, the regional disaster authority Dapard said.
London - . The increased shipments came as the European Union and other U.S. allies heaped criticism on the Trump administration for its rejection of the Paris Climate Accord, a deal agreed by nearly 200 countries to cut carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like coal.
Rome - Ilva, strike in Taranto and concern among ArcelorMittal workers. The strike at the Ilva plant in Taranto, launched by the UBS, begins tonight at 23:00 and will run until 7:00 on Friday, 21.
Bogota - At least eight miners at an underground coal mine in Colombia have died and five more are missing after an explosion caused by methane gas, the national mining agency said on Saturday.
Ryadh - Saudi Arabia is banning imports of Egyptian strawberries due to pesticide residues, said Abdel Hamid al-Demerdash, the head of Egypt’s Agriculture Export Council, the latest such ban to hit Egypt as it struggles to revive its economy
Yaounde - Exports of cocoa and coffee resumed from Cameroon’s main port of Douala on Monday following the end to a dock workers’ strike that had blocked shipments since Friday, officials said.
Beijing - Producer price inflation +6.4 pct y/y.PPI negative m/m for first time since June.
Lecco - British Steel is expanding its activities in the European railway sector by openinga new logistics centre in Italy for the production of long length rails. The company - a key supplier of Italy’s state rail operator Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) - has just inaugurated a plant in Lecco
Washington - Rising coal prices and a more favorable outlook for the industry under President Donald Trump’s administration are allowing U.S. coal companies to sign new leveraged loans after being shut out of the market since mid-2015, despite a declining long-term outlook for the industry.
Andria - On 13 July 2015 Paola Clemente,49, died from overwork in the fields around Andria (Puglia). She died from exhaustion: putting in twelve-hour days for a wage of less than thirty euro. Her death prompted Trani’s prosecutor to open an investigation that yesterday led to the arrest of six individuals
Nuova Delhi - Coal imports declined by 21.7 per cent to 14.31 million tonnes in January as the power utilities did not lift much fuel due to abundant stock available with them.
Shanghai - China will suspend all imports of coal from North Korea starting Feb. 19, the country’s commerce ministry said in a notice posted on its website on Saturday, as part of its efforts to implement United Nations sanctions against the country.
Genoa - The ILVA group will lay off 5,000 workers in Italy: 4,984 from the Taranto plant, where 10,974 are employed in the integrated steelworks, and 80 (in other words everyone) at the logistical centre in Marghera, where the product from Taranto is unloaded and loaded onto ships.
Beijing - China imported 26.97 million mt of coal in November this year. In December 2015, the country imported 17.64 million mt of coal. For the whole year 2016, total coal imports rose 25.2% year on year to 255.51 million mt.
Milan - Parmalat is prepared to definitively leave the Milan Stock Exchange, after five years of minimal presence, with exchanges reduced because the shares available for trading were limited to 12.26% of the capital after Lactalis’s 2011 takeover bid
Gwadar - “Pakistan is located at the intersection of three engines of growth in Asia - South Asia, China and Central Asia,” Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said.
Milan - “Investments in ILVA’s vertical products are an essential element of the industrial plan. We must push for verticalization. In Genoa, the future manager will find the new galvanisation line 5, in which we have invested over €8 million, and tin-plate line 4 revamped for €400,000
Brussels - The European Commission proposed on Wednesday a new way to assess whether Chinese manufacturers are exporting products such as steel at unfairly low prices in response to Beijing’s demand for change by the end of the year
New Delhi - Coal imports during July declined by 11.1 per cent to 18.03 million tonnes (MT) on the back of higher domestic availability of the fossil fuel.
Rome - The sale of ILVA to private investors is being delayed until 2017. Special Commissioner Piero Gnudi is ruling out the possibility of selling the group in October and is extending the time frame until the first months of the new year
Genoa - The Board of Directors of publicly controlled joint-stock companyCassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) has scheduled a meeting for this morning. On the table is plan B of the consortium led by Giovanni Arvedi for the lease/purchase of the Ilva steel plants in Taranto, Genoa and Novi Ligure
Genoa - The sale of troubled Italian Ilva steel plant to private interests will not contain any employment clauses.
